Taliban war cries give Afghan neighbours sleepless nights

The Taliban's appeal to the United Nations for international recognition as the government of Afghanistan is forcing neighbouring governments to take tough decisions on where they stand with the triumphant Islamic rebels.

Having captured parts of north-west Afghanistan from General Abdul Rashid Dostum, the Taliban is now making a determined effort to oust their last remaining enemy, General Ahmad Shah Masoud, from his mountain refuge in the northern part of the country.

In control of 80 per cent of Afghanistan, the Taliban called for foreign countries to de-recognise the 'other' government -- led by President Burhanuddin Rabbani who has fled to the Tajik capital of Dushanbe -- and deal officially with their leaders in Kabul.

''We ask for Afghanistan's seat at the United Nations, Organisation of Islamic Conference, the Non-Aligned Movement and the Economic Cooperation Organisation to be handed over (to the Taliban),'' an Afghan foreign ministry statement said.

These developments have set off alarm bells not only in central Asian capitals but in Moscow, Teheran and Turkey as well.

Of the three central Asian republics that border Afghanistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan feel threatened by the emergence of an arch fundamentalist government in Kabul. The Uzbek government said it was sending troops to reinforce its frontier guards.

More importantly, Russian Foreign Minister Yevgeny Primakov declared that the collective security treaty which the five Central Asian states signed with Moscow in 1992 would be 'immediately activated' if Afghanistan violated the border of any of these countries.

There is reason to suspect that the Taliban regime plans to send its troops into Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. Its first priority is to seize the two provinces (of the total 31) still in Masoud's hands. His hold on a third, the Takhar province, was loosened on Tuesday by a pro-Taliban uprising.

To fight Masoud, the Taliban leaders are using the same strategy which they used against Dostum. This is an amalgam of exploiting the tribal feudal tradition and using money to win loyalty. With Saudis as their financial backers, the Taliban can afford to offer cash to cause defections from opposing ranks.

They had succeeded in neutralising a wide array of petty warlords who held sway in Afghanistan before mid-1994 when the fully armed and trained Taliban militia appeared on the Afghan scene.

The Taliban leadership brought about Dostum's downfall by causing the defection of his erstwhile foreign minister General Abdul Malik Pahlawan. It is widely believed that around one million dollars changed hands, though others say Pahlawan did it to avenge his brother's life. Pahlawan's brother Rasool was reportedly assassinated by Dostum's cohorts some months earlier.

What also helped the Taliban was the fact that Dostum could not live down his Communist past or give up his penchant for 'good living', which violates strict Islamic norms such as abstinence from alcohol.

However, Pahlawan and the Taliban have fallen out following the former's refusal to hand weapons over to Taliban guards. This led to several battles that left 300 Taliban troops dead. The Taliban hurriedly vacated Mazar-e-Sharif earlier this week.

Masoud, with his force of 20,000 experienced fighters, still remain at large. If Masoud's troops, who are ethnic Tajiks, are defeated, they will almost certainly withdraw into Tajikistan. That country has just formally ended a five year civil war between the secularist governing party and the armed Islamist opposition, and is on the verge of consolidating the peace process.

Hence, the arrival of thousands of battle-hardened fighters who waged a long and successful Islamic jihad against the Soviet forces in the 1980s can only strengthen the Islamist elements in Tajikistan and upset the current delicate balance of power.

The fear in Tashkent, the Uzbek capital, is of a different sort. The authorities there reckon the Taliban regime will infiltrate ethnic Uzbeks from Afghanistan to shore up the nascent Islamist movement which exists there, especially in the fertile Fergana valley where a third of the 23 million national population lives.

Uzbekistan President Islam Karimov, a staunch secularist, is keen not to provide the Taliban regime a pretext to interfere in his country's domestic affairs. He lost no time in dispatching the defeated Dostum, when he sought refuge in Tashkent, to Ankara.

Karimov will have to ensure the anti-Taliban Afghans do not use Uzbek territory to mount guerrilla operations against the Taliban.

What will test the efficiency of his security forces is the attempt by the Taliban to infiltrate Uzbekistan under the guise of refugees. Once inside, these 'refugees' will forge links with Islamist elements there.

It is this scenario that worries the government in Tashkent. It does not feel reassured by Taliban Foreign Minister Maulavi Muhammad Ghous's statement that his government 'strictly adheres to a policy of non-interference in the internal affairs of other countries'.

UNI